Thread by @ethuin

🧵Many people I speak to compare the “new” conflict around M23 to the 2012 crisis, seeing it as yet another cycle in the same longer history of crises in eastern #Congo — especially foreigners but also people from the Great Lakes region. I am not sure whether that’s true…

There is, whoever you listen to, unarguably a long, persistent history of grievances and unsolved problems. Different people have different claims, and it’s not for me to judge who is right or wrong. On some aspects of the story, there probably isn’t really a right or wrong…

But one thing, and that’s what this particular thread is about, is most likely new. For 30 years, and probably longer depending on what you look at, there has not been a moment where all of eastern Congo has been at peace.

Some aspects of the conflict involve M23 and it’s predecessor groups and many others not. Think of ADF, think of Codeco, think of places like the South Kivu highlands or Tanganyika. Yet, like in 2012, international interest mostly focuses disproportionately on M23.

This was the case in 2012 and it is the same today. But yet, there are things that are very different now. Researchers, journalists and activists experience that in their own ways but some patterns are shared.

Today’s debate around the crisis is politicized to a degree that has not been the case previously. In 2012, it was possible for me and many Congolese, Rwandan, Ugandan, Burundian and other foreign researchers to engage with conflict parties on all sides.

Back then, I had the privilege to engage with and travel to all stakeholders of the conflict. I listened to the M23’s leadership, to FARDC generals, to other armed groups. These people are no innocent angels but they all had a story to share. And, to the extent you respect each..

…and their position in the larger battle of ideas, they tolerated us as researchers coming to learn and understand. This, at the same time, allowed for meeting people in the region of all social, political and other backgrounds and also listen. That is what research is about.

The latest episode of the conflict is different. Not only does the confrontation around M23 galvanize antagonisms more than ever — especially in the public and social media discourse — it has also become harder to negotiate access and defend a tolerant, impartial approach.

In many ways, the poisonous debates on social media, bringing in extremist views and transforming debate into zero-sum games where deviant opinion is cast as enemy opinion, radiates back to the actual “battleground” (in lack of a better word).

This evolution has emboldened voices (often not those directly involved but free-riders chiming n with their respective politics) that try to frame the conflict as “we’re good and they are bad”, and nothing in between.

Those promoting a more nuanced view find themselves exposed to online hate and, ironically, accused of siding with the respective other side. A case in point, even moderate voices would not shy away to describe the very same people as both genocidaires and Rwandan puppets.

Personally, I still struggle to fathom how one could possibly both support M23 and FDLR. It makes little sense, analytically, looking at these groups’ particular histories and ideologies.

Even politically, it is rather useless to thrive on a zero-sum game attitude. It may gain short term dividends but it won’t solve deeper challenges. Scoring cheap points may be nice to reap some followers but most of the population suffering have no twitter followers…

Instead, they face insecurity, precarity and shattered dreams for themselves and their children. Whatever side they lean on or are associated with. My Kinyarwanda-speaking friends find themselves in the middle of all this.

One day, they are stigmatized as foreigners in Congo, as sympathizers of M23 or Rwanda or both. Another day, they will be called collaborators of Kinshasa and/or of the FDLR. Yet, reality is more complicated.

Many people stuck in this conundrum just do not want to take sides. Their side is that of no war, no discrimination. They want military and political stakeholders to find solutions that allow for living peacefully together.

As much as they suffer from actual warfare and conflict dynamics, they suffer from being forced into taking sides. Many friends of mine have faced harassment and worse for not wanting to be with either conflict party.

The way in which discourse around the conflict evolves aggravates the predicament of all those that don’t agree being put in boxes. Those denouncing violations regardless of who is committing them are facing the same attacks from all corners, just changing sides and back…

…and that indeed, is a change from previous times where despite all differences that may exist, there was a tacit agreement that there can be a middle ground to things — both in everyday interaction on the ground and discourse on what is happening.